


Earth's Mightiest Heroes

by hquinzelle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 17:11:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hquinzelle/pseuds/hquinzelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earth's mightiest heroes were dead.  New York was a wasteland.  It was all Loki's fault.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Earth's Mightiest Heroes

_If you fail, he will make you long for something as sweet as pain._

**Earth’s Mightiest Heroes**

_Earth’s mightiest heroes were dead._

_New York was a wasteland._

_It was all his fault._

_\---------_

It had been three years since Loki had tried to rule Midgard.  Odin had banished him from Asgard, sentencing him to live out the rest of his natural life – or at least until Odin decided he had suffered enough – on Midgard, working with the Avengers to atone for his sins.  Thor, of course, had gone with him, to make sure that Loki didn’t cause any trouble.  He had been allowed to keep his magic, but it was made clear that if he misbehaved or harmed anyone, it would be taken away.

Loki hadn’t forgotten the Other’s threat, or the Other’s master, Thanos, but the days went by and nothing happened; the Avengers slowly came to accept him, he and Thor were starting to get along – Loki, at least, didn’t want to kill Thor on sight anymore - and he had found someone who he thought he could love ( _already loved?_ ) if given enough time.  If someone had asked him, he might have said he was almost _happy_ , and he began to let his guard down.

The day everything changed began innocently enough.  It was almost spring, and the air was starting to warm, flowers were beginning to bloom, and adults and children alike emerged from their winter hibernation, blinking at the bright light of the sun. 

The Avengers had just successfully completed a mission, and were meeting for a debrief.  Loki was bored, and had stepped outside to get some air. 

The attack came without warning.  One minute the sky was blue and cloudless, and the next it was filled with Chitauri flyers and Chitauri leviathans.  It appeared that the Chitauri had _learned_ from their previous experience on Midgard, and _evolved_ – in addition to the fact that they had not needed a portal to appear, their flyers were faster, their armor was thicker, their battle cries louder;  the leviathans were larger, their teeth sharper. 

Loki froze in shock.  His eye sight suddenly distorted as he felt a pulling sensation.  Rough hands grabbed him, and when he looked around he realized he was on the edge of space, being held by Chitauri warriors and forced to his knees in front of the Other.  He was stunned at first, unable to move – he had thought the Other could only pull him to the edge of space using the scepter.  He was brought back to the present moment when the Other put a hand on either side of his face.  Loki’s head began to spin, and he felt dizzy.  After what seemed forever the Other let go of Loki’s head.  The Chitauri warriors let go of him at the same time, and he pitched forward, barely managing to not fall on his face as he braced himself with his palms.  He shuddered as he realized what had happened - the Other had taken away his most valuable weapon, his magic.  His strength, cunning, and skills with daggers would have no effect on the Other or the Chitauri.

“Did you think we had forgotten you?  Did you think we were not coming for you, _Asgardian_?” the Other rasped, his foul breath, his rotten essence, filling the air until Loki felt like he couldn’t breathe.

The Other’s bony fingers grasped Loki’s chin and forced his head to turn to the right.  The air shimmered and Loki was filled with horror as he realized what he was seeing.  The Other was forcing him to watch as the Chitauri destroyed New York…watch as they slaughtered people by droves, including…

“My master still desires an audience with you…but for now he is content with forcing you to watch as everything and everyone you care for on Midgard is destroyed,” the Other said, breaking Loki out of his thoughts.

The Chitauri warriors grabbed Loki as he began to struggle against their grip.  He was powerless to prevent what happened next.  If he tried to close his eyes, to escape the horrors, the Other would force him to watch.  He was only released when the battle was over, when the city fell quiet and the Chitauri were satisfied with the destruction they had wrought…for now.

He felt a pushing sensation, and he was once again in New York City, but he was now in the middle of the city, almost in Central Park.

_We will meet again, Asgardian_ , the Other whispered in his mind _._

\--------------

Loki’s mind reeled from the sight of the devastation surrounding him.  Nothing was moving – not a person, not an animal…nothing.  The only sounds were the blaring of car and building alarms and the crackling of fires in destroyed buildings.  The air was thick with the smell of soot and blood. 

_Earth’s mightiest heroes were dead_.

Loki was surrounded by the bodies of the people whom he had come to regard as friends.  He felt a sharp pain in his chest – loss? – as he looked around and remembered what he had witnessed from the edge of space.

The Avengers had fought together and died together. 

Romanov and Barton had been the first to die, her cunning and his arrows no match for the newly improved Chitauri warriors.  Their bodies laid next to each other, Barton’s hand reaching out for Romanov’s even in death.

Rogers had been crushed underneath the weight of a building.  He had held up a steel beam supporting a doorway as long as he could, allowing a large group of people to escape, but ultimately failing to escape himself.  It was a small mercy that he did not live long enough to see that they were almost immediately cut down by the Chitauri, negating his noble sacrifice.

Banner had been torn apart by a leviathan when he attempted to repeat the move that had brought him so much success three years ago, using his brute strength to smash it into the ground.  Its teeth closed around him in its death throes, and he was bitten in half before he could escape, reverting to his human form in death. 

Stark had died not far from where the Hulk had made his last stand.  His armor was twisted and warped, his body bent into a shape that should have been, that was, physically impossible.  He had tried to protect his friend, and failed when a group of Chitauri flyers had caught him by surprise.

Thor….

Thor had been the last Avenger to fall.  He had used Mjolnir to summon the power of lightning to strike down scores of flyers and more than one leviathan.  As the Avengers fell, however, he found himself single-handedly fighting off more and more Chitauri.  He had eventually been surrounded, and then overwhelmed.  The humans thought the Asgardians were immortal, and while it was true they were very hard to kill, it was possible.  He lay in the middle of a circle of Chitauri corpses, apparently having been able to take quite a few with him as he died.  His cape was torn and his face and body were covered in blood.  It was difficult to tell how much of the blood was his, and how much was the blood of his enemies.  Even in death, he still grasped Mjolnir, unwilling to admit defeat.

Loki crouched next to Thor, trying to comprehend that his brother was really dead.  If he was ever allowed to return to Asgard, he would be next in line for the throne; the fact that he had finally achieved what he thought was his ultimate goal, however, now just left him feeling hollow.  He gently closed Thor’s eyes.  Drops of water fell on Thor’s face, and Loki realized he was crying.

After a long moment, Loki stood up and sighed heavily, finally looking down the street towards where Avengers tower had once stood proudly.  The tower had been one of the first buildings to fall, a leviathan ripping through it like it was made of paper instead of steel and glass, causing a domino effect that had taken out most of the downtown skyscrapers.  Part of the building still stood, giving him a brief glimmer of hope.

He had put off this moment until he could stand it no longer, dreading what he feared would be inevitable.  Out of all the death and destruction he had seen today, this would be the hardest to handle; there was a good chance it would destroy his tenuous grasp on reality if it came to pass.

He walked down the street, and entered what was left of the lobby.  Rubble and dead bodies littered the floor.  He stepped over them, not looking too closely, only checking to make sure the one he was looking for was not there, but then they wouldn’t be – they would have been lower, in the secret labs.

Only a cable hung where the elevator had been previously.  He would need to take the stairs.  He pried open the door and began his descent.  Luckily, most of the stairs were still there, but he did have to make a few leaps here and there to bridge gaps  The door to the level he was looking for was still intact.  He stood there for a few minutes, then finally turned the knob and opened the door, bracing himself for what he would find.

The lab was in shambles.  The floor was covered in pieces of concrete and steel beams.  Fluorescent lights hung loosely from the ceiling and sparks flew off of the remaining computer equipment – how was there still power? – lending an eerie light that flashed in and out.  It made the scene even more surreal.

He glanced around the room.  His stomach sank as he spotted what he was hoping he wouldn’t find.  A red wool hat lay on the ground by one of the beams.

_Darcy_.

He walked over and picked the hat up.  That was when he saw her, pinned underneath a pile of concrete.  Her face was frozen in death, her skin gray, her mouth open as if she had been shouting – for him, he wondered?  Her eyes were vacant and glazed over.  Those eyes, which had once looked at him with such love.  _Why hadn’t he told her he loved her?_

Loki pulled the rubble off of her body, not caring if he hurt himself, cutting his hands and wearing his fingers almost to the bone with his frantic actions.  When he could, he pulled her out and cradled her body in his arms, sobbing.  An anguished cry poured from his throat, echoing throughout the room and rising up through the building, so loud it could almost be heard in the stars.

_It was all his fault._

_\--------------_

Thanos was pleased.        


End file.
